House of Northour
House Northour is the de jure ruling family of the Duchy of Strom's March in the Swamp of Sorrows. It originally hails from Strom in the Arathorian Empire, and in recognition of the heritage it claims its heraldry from the Imperial Legion. Its male line was destroyed along with its seat and most of its holdings during the First War, in the last months of year 592 K.C., rendering it in effect a defunct house. History House Northour held little more than a singular fort - the Stormfort - on the border of the Hinterlands during the days of the Arathorian Empire, and this fort it held in the name of the Emperor, not their own family. In those days, House Northour was but a military family whose consistent loyalty acquired for them positions typically reserved for landed nobles. Few records beyond this exist of House Northour. The last mention of them in Arathorian records come in the midst of the Empire's collapse, in the year 902 P.C. Lord Thormond Northour, Marshal of His Majesty's Third Legion, sent his last report from the Stormfort in November of 901. By spring of 900 the Third Legion had abandoned the Stormfort entirely, abandoning the Empire to its fate and seeking power elsewhere. Strom's March Lord Thormond and his two sons, Valt and Iodus, led the Third Legion south across the Thandol Span to join the heirs of Thoradin. He never made it to them, however. The Third Legion was diverted into the Badlands and was unable to find an effective route west into the fertile lands of Elwynn and Brightwood. Therefore Lord Thormond drove the Legion farther south into the Black Morass. They spent the winter of 900 on the coast of the Morass, battling troll incursions, starvation, and disease. Thormond was quickly forced to mobilize his troops again, pushing them farther south along the marshland's bloated lakes and rivers until he could march them west effectively. In the spring of 899, the Third Legion encountered the southernmost holdings of the Agusti, a human civilization native to the Black Morass. The Agusti were a warlike people and territorial, but their military technology paled before the Legion's, and Thormond ordered the Agusti's settlements sacked for supplies. After early successes and the discovery of the Agusti's road system, Thormond ordered an invasion of the Agusti kingdom, intending to take it for his own. Scouts reported that the largest Agusti city, Steorra, was north of the river Ea Angnes, and as such he deployed much of the Third Legion in that direction. He dispatched Iodus with his cavalry west to dispatch what he presumed to be the weaker Agusti settlements there. It would be Iodus, however, who would encounter the bulk of the Agusti army, personally led by their monarch Valesarian and augmented by their fanatical blood priests. Iodus lost half of his forces battling Valesarian at the western tributary of the Ea Angnes, in what would become known as the Battle of the Sorrow, but he ultimately claimed victory over the native king and forced him to retreat to the Agusti capital. Iodus would kill Valesarian, raze Agustþrymm, and cut off the heads of both the Hierophancy and the ruling House Auguste, and without realizing that he had just won the war for his family, rode back east to regroup with the rest of the Third Legion. The Third Legion arrived at Steorra and began besieging the fortified city, one of the few in the Agusti kingdom at that time. The Agusti commander, unfamiliar with the tactic, immediately sallied out to meet the Legion in battle and fell before the numerically and technologically superior Arathi army. Iodus soon returned with the crown of Valesarian, and at the sight of it the remaining Agusti surrendered, recognizing the right of conquest. Lord Thormund thereby declared the entire kingdom of the Agusti the Principality of Strom's March and took Steorra as his seat. Most of the Agusti kingdom only owed allegiance to House Auguste because of conquest to begin with and quickly acclimated to the Stromic house's rule. Only the settlements nearest to the ruins of Agustþrymm proved particularly troublesome. Lord Thormond ordered his son Iodus to take the 14-year-old Valencia, niece of the deceased Agusti king Valesarian, as his wife, hoping that this would help House Northour find legitimacy in that part of the duchy. It was only after the decision was made to allow Iodus's descendants to keep the Auguste family name that public outrage began to be quelled. This decision led to House Northour declaring those settlements to be the Barony of Augustholm, meaning the "Isle of the Augustans," for there alone, on this ideological 'island', would the original rulers remain enthroned. The other source of political resistance, the Hierophancy, proved more difficult to quell. Its influence was more widespread in the Duchy, and ideology consistently proves more troublesome to destroy than individuals of a ruling family. The newly-anointed Bishop of Strom's March of the Arathorian Church of the Holy Light organized a crusade against the Hierophants, calling upon all faithful followers of the Light to hunt down the pagan priests. In response, the Hierophancy organized underground rebel cells which orchestrated terrorist attacks against the Duchy. In one such attack, the resistance caught Baron Iodus on the road to Steorra, leading to the deaths of most of the escort and Iodus himself, and the attempted murder of both Valencia and their newborn son. This attack would backfire on the Hierophancy, however, as Valencia made a public conversion to the Light after a miraculous recovery. In return the Bishop offered her a sainthood; this offer was never canonized but did result in many citizens of the duchy who were sympathetic to the Hierophants' cause abandoning them. The few surviving Hierophants disappeared into the shadowy Barrier Hills, not to emerge again. Slowly House Northour was adapting to its new environment, and the environment to them. The War for Independence In the year 6 P.C., Logan Wrynn of Stormwind began an open revolt against Arathorian rule, inspiring similar guerrilla movements across the southern Eastern Kingdoms. Baron Ashdon Valyrian Saint-Auguste, perhaps sensing the shift in the balance of power, allowed individuals from within his barony to join House Northour's defense forces, but he opted to withhold any official support from the Principality, keeping the bulk of Augustan forces stationed at Valyrian's Wall. The prince's requests for support piled up in Ashdon's fireplace as he waited to see how the rebels would fare, and by the end of the second year of the war, it was widely believed that Ashdon was actively negotiating to join Logan Wrynn in revolt. This changed suddenly in March of 4 P.C. with the assassination of Ashdon Valyrian, presumably by Stormwind skirmishers. His steward, his uncle Roltair, passed away from heart failure before April, leaving the childless lord's half-brother Maxias to take control of the House. Maxias, the Commander of the Darkstep at the time, immediately reaffirmed his loyalty to House Northour, sending Augustan troops to aid the Stromic legions in battle. After Logan Wrynn was crowned, Strom's March recalled its remaining forces and found itself in an uneasy cold war with the nascent kingdom of Stormwind. Baron Maxias remained a loyal servant of House Northour during this time, as would his descendants after him. The Conquest of the Black Morass Strom's March's prosperity had waned since its heyday during the War for Independence, as it had lost many of its trade partners to the Kingdom of Stormwind. By the year 377 K.C., Strom's March found itself at war with the Gurubashi Empire and was struggling to keep itself fed and its defenses reinforced against the seemingly endless waves of troll invaders. This presented an opportunity for the expansionistic King Eadred Wrynn of Stormwind. In exchange for Stormwind joining the war on House Northour's behalf and the hand of Eadred's niece Dalia in marriage, Prince Arvyn Northour would surrender his son's title to the Principality, submitting to Stormwind's rule. Together the Prince and the King drove the Gurubashi from the Swamp, securing the border by the year 382 K.C. Dalia and Arvyn's son Brendyn were wed the following year. In the year 413, Arvyn passed, and all of his holdings, including Augustholm, were passed to Stormwind, reformed into the Duchy of Strom's March. The barony of Augustholm had only just changed hands the year before. Modern History In 592 K.C., a cataclysmic event ripped through the Black Morass: the Dark Portal to Draenor had been opened. The Duchy of Strom's March found itself firmly in the Horde's path. Couriers were sent to Augustholm to rally Augustan forces while Duke Fendrel Northour gathered his own forces to protect the principality. His key tactical mistake was to underestimate the overwhelming might of the Horde's war machine. Believing that he could hold the entirety of his principality alone, he divided his forces in order to hold numerous outlying settlements, which often lacked fortifications of any kind. Moving from one to the next, the Horde systemically crushed the soldiers of Strom's March and marched on to Steorra before reinforcements could come. The Horde's siege of the city lasted months, but at last they forced their way over the walls and butchered the depleted garrison. Duke Fendrel and the entirety of his family is believed to have died in this final battle. After the sacking of Steorra, the Horde ravaged the rest of the principality and ultimately marched on to Augustholm. Within a year and a half, all remnant of House Northour had been wiped from the Black Morass. The few survivors of the invasion fled elsewhere in Stormwind, many rendezvousing with Baron Barathen Valyrian Saint-Auguste and later resettling in the barony. Category:Houses, Clans and Tribes